


Found His Happiness

by FickleBiscuits



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Galra mate for life, Gen, Hurts So Good, I'm so disappointed, Krolia being a good mother, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post Season 8, Spoilers-ish, You can't convince me otherwise, hopefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:14:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FickleBiscuits/pseuds/FickleBiscuits
Summary: "...It should be him. It should be him walking down that aisle. It should be him holding Shiro’s hand. It should be him smiling into Shiro’s face. It should be him promising forever. But Shiro doesn’t want that. Shiro wants to hold someone else, wants to smile into someone else’s face. Shiro is going to walk down the aisle with someone else tonight.And Keith is going to let him..."





	Found His Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> I doubt I'm ever going to stop being baffled by the final season of VLD. So have some pining Keith while I get to work on my 'fix-it' fic.

 

 

 

 

> I’ve finally stopped  
>  writing  
>  unrequited letters;  
>  there are too many  
>  wasted breaths  
>  left unsent  
>    
>  Lapsing intentions  
>  befallen on timeworn  
>  tawny crumpled  pages;  
>  aging like spent flowers  
>  in fading earth tones  
>  _and rumpled paper regrets_
> 
>  
> 
>   **Excerpt from - 'Crumpled Pages' - by Jesse Stillwater**
> 
>  

* * *

 

 

  The seat is soft with age, the fabric worn thin and threadbare in places. The springs groan softly with every minute shift Keith makes.

  Light drifts in from the nearby windows, slowly diminishing as the day draws to a close, closer towards evening, closer to the hour that Keith is looking forward to with all the happy anticipation of a condemned man on the eve of his own execution.

  Nausea churns in his guts as he thumbs the smooth strip of fabric held in the loose circle of numb fingers. His tie. The noose he’ll wrap around his neck and wear on the long way down to Shiro’s wedding.

  The suit he wears is borrowed. It is stiff and starched and uncomfortable; too restrictive, too impractical, too white. He is pressed and clean, his hair for once not windswept, but tied neatly back, like he’s the one getting married. But he wears the face of a mourner, not a groom.

  He can feel the drooping corners of his mouth, hangdog and heavy and knows he looks heartbroken and pathetic and as lost as he did when he was 16. But he can’t stop. He hasn’t been able to since he received the crisp filigreed envelope six months ago.

  Keith glances over at the gilded card stock folded to stand upright on the scared surface of his coffee table. The gleaming creamy white parchment bears two names in stark black calligraphy and a date Keith will despise for the rest of his life.

  He wonders how it came to this, tries to track the moments and missteps which led him to this place, this time, this horrible, irreversible reality. But he cannot pinpoint when it all went wrong, what secret sequence of words or actions veered the course of his destiny to this moment. It was always supposed to be this way, he supposes; everything he did, everything he said, it was always leading here, to this night. And briefly, for a small, utterly selfish moment, Keith wishes that Honerva had destroyed that last fibrous ribbon of existence, plunged them all into eternal, blissful nothingness. The longing, the fierce, visceral want grips into the marrow of his bones, high and tight and full of immobilizing rage. And then just as quickly it leaves him; weak and shaky and trembling in its wake.

  But not guilty.

  Not quite.

  He wants… Keith wants with a yearning that burns with the intensity of an igniting star. That has not diminished. It is a need he’s felt so long it’s become part of him, as inextricable a function of himself as breathe, as heartbeat. He can’t remember when he first began to burn. The sensation built so gradually, circumstance stoking the embers in his bones until the glow became a blaze and then an inferno, roaring and raging against the cage of his ribs.

  Utter, passionate devotion. Unlike the steely solidity of duty and honor. Divorced entirely from the frenzied, chaotic fever of wrath. No, this, this, Keith knows he will never feel again.

   _It is wrong!_ His instinct screams and kicks at his sternum, digs its talons into the soft pit of his stomach. _It’s not my name! It should be my name!_

  Keith knows the voice is right. It should be him. It should be him walking down that aisle. It should be him holding Shiro’s hand. It should be him smiling into Shiro’s face. It should be him promising forever. But Shiro doesn’t want that. Shiro wants to hold someone else, wants to smile into someone else’s face. Shiro is going to walk down the aisle with someone else tonight.

  And Keith is going to let him.

  There’s a knock at the door, a small, inquisitive tap which gives way to a diminutive squeak of hinges and the soft pad of footsteps on the cabin’s wood floor. Kolivan and Krolia deposit themselves lightly and gracefully onto seats, Kolivan onto one of the chairs opposite Keith’s dingy couch, Krolia to the empty space beside her son. They are dressed in the formal garb of the order, the stiff fabric husking roughly as they move.

  Neither speak for minutes and Keith does not acknowledge them, doesn’t look up to greet them. He knows why they’ve come and he has nothing to say. He folds the tie in his hands, twists until the fabric creaks and thinks that silk is such a fantastically strong material.

  “Keith.” His mother says, shattering the silence. Keith lets the pieces of it fall and waits until they form a new mosaic, sets his jaw and pulls again at his tie. Excellent craftsmanship.

  “V’tovah croz’g n’rath ni t’ahl jeral,” Kolivan spits in Galran, his voice gravelly and deadly serious in a way Keith hasn’t heard it for years. When he speaks again, it’s in English so Keith can understand the pointed cynicism of his words.

  “Krolia he will not see reason. You’re wasting your time.”

  Krolia does not answer Kolivan. Instead she places her hand over the knotted mess of Keith’s fingers, her touch delicate and soft.

  “Keith.” She says again, just as heartbreakingly gentle as the first time and Keith is helpless to do anything other than raise his head and meet the relentless compassion and hurt reflected in her eyes.

  “I couldn’t do it.” He says.

  His voice betrays him in even those few words; sunders and skitters and shivers apart into pieces so small he can barely hear himself even in the stillness.

  “I can’t do that to him.” He presses on, ignoring the stinging prickle behind his eyes.

  “This is not the way of the Galra.” Kolivan stands and begins to pace, his voice low and frustrated. “You sit here, crying for what you want like a child, but you refuse to fight for it?”

  He shakes his head as if he cannot comprehend how anyone in the universe could act in such a way.

  Krolia just waits. And watches.

  Keith leans over, presses his face against the soft fur and whispers into their tangled hands.

  “I love him.”

  Kolivan snorts.

  Krolia says nothing.

  “Shiro wants this. He wants…” Keith can’t wrap his tongue around the name, can’t force the syllables out of his mouth, tries and the need for violent action rises with a suddenness that sets his teeth on edge. Keith wants to tear off his suit; he wants to fight, to scream, to cry, to do something, anything other than sit meekly by and watch as he loses the man he loves more than life itself.

  He clamps a hand over his face and tries to breath through the clawing pain at his throat.

  “I can’t do this.” He says. “I can’t go and pretend I’m…”

  “Then don’t.” Kolivan cuts in, growling. “Takashi Shirogane is a dishonorable Klebahk or a fool to abandon you. You owe him nothing.”

  “I owe him everything.” Keith shouts back, head snapping up to meet his mentor’s hard gaze with teary, red-rimmed eyes.

  “Shiro saved me. He put his reputation on the line for me when no one else-”

  “So you’ve said.” Kolivan cuts in, his tone icy. “But I see none of the loyalty in him which you claim to. In fact, he seems quite ready to abandon you now that he’s found someone willing to keep his prick warm. Or maybe he just got tired of waiting for you to spread your le-”

  Keith doesn’t recall moving. His senses are a wash of red and a dull ringing drone. He comes to himself the next instant, registers the ache in his knuckles, the livid heaving breaths which expand his chest in shallow gulps hissed between clenched teeth. Kolivan is standing, staggered, his head thrown to one side. Slowly he turns to face Keith, his expression betraying neither pain nor pity. He steps around Keith, wordlessly striding to the doorway, pausing to stand at the threshold.

  “Then you are both fools.” He says and the click of the door behind him feels like a slap.

  Keith stands and seethes, his hands balled and white knuckled, his mind spinning. Rage sparks within him, ignited to set his blood on fire. He wants, he hates, he needs, he flounders...uncertain and full of restless energy.

  “Keith.” Krolia’s voice comes to him through the haze of instinct born vitriol. She places her hand on his shoulders and speaks carefully, her breath ruffling the hair at the back of his neck.

  “The Galra are beings of fierce passions. We live, we fight, we love, with everything that we are. We know no other way.

  “When I lost your father, a part of me died with him. And I would do anything to spare you that same pain.”

  Keith can feel his mind calming with the sad sincerity of her words, his blood cooling, his muscles unlocking one by one. Slowly, by infinitesimal measures, rationale returns and soon all that remains is the overwhelming melancholy from before. He is tired. So tired.

  “I will not tell you that you should speak to him.” His mother says. “But are you sure _this_ is what you want?”

  Keith chokes out a whisper, resignation drawing frail lines in every syllable. “I know what I feel…but I know that Shiro is...is happy. Talking to him won’t change that. If I say something, I might lose what little part of him I still have left...and I couldn’t...I couldn’t bear that…”

  Tears seep silent down his cheeks.

  “The thought of…” His throat locks, breaks the rest of his words into shards that rain down like misery on them both. He struggles to gather them, but they shatter further in his hands, until there is nothing left of them but echoes.

  Krolia says nothing, but holds him tighter and they stand together in quiet agony as the last of the afternoon sun dies.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s giving up.” Krolia says finally and pushes Keith gently towards the small bathroom, where he splashes tepid water onto his face and slips the tie around his neck, cinching it tight.

  “And he never will.” Keith replies and joins his mother to take his first few steps towards the gallows.

 


End file.
